Archive for the OnLive 2009 Category

OnLive was the first company to introduce low-latency cloud gaming as an over-the-top service in 2010. After the 2009 announcement and prior to that launch, many had deemed it impossible. People were correct to be skeptical since there were many hurdles that had to be overcome. There was a lot of excitement and hype at the time that it was proven to be real in 2010. Paradoxically, the hype and excitement have waned at the same time as all of the business fundamentals have dramatically improved. This slide shown by NVIDIA at a cloud gaming conference shows this in the context of the Gartner Group’s “Hype Cycle.”

Every major technology goes through this process of inflated expectations, disillusionment and dismissal, and subsequent establishment of importance. Unfortunately, as of this writing, the game industry is still in the “Trough of Disillusionment” regarding cloud gaming. That attitude is out-of-date for many reasons.

Cloud gaming is a matter of when, not if. Media delivery always passes through three stages:

physical (e.g. CDs & DVDs),

downloads (e.g. iTunes & Steam) then ultimately,

streaming (e.g. Pandora, Netflix & OnLive).

First it happened for music, then video, and now OnLive enables it for games and all applications. Reliably streaming latency-sensitive graphically-intense applications (GIA’s) over the open internet is a huge challenge that OnLive has overcome.

Every major trend is moving dramatically in the right direction for cloud gaming:

Unlike home platforms, there is no limit to the amount of computing power that can be brought to bear in the cloud to create new experiences.

OnLive’s platform can run Windows applications remotely from a wide range of clients. This is a similar capability as Amazon’s AppStream, but we deliver it at lower cost, lower latency and with better performance at lower bandwidth while tolerating more packet loss. The ability to deliver any application to any platform is a big deal.

OnLive has 144 patents issued or allowed, with another 135 pending (as of 3/15). Many of these are fundamental and are a result of OnLive having pioneered this area.

Reliably delivering OnLive’s service over the open internet without interruption for over 4 years is the result of tremendous talent and dedication on the part of many brilliant minds. The innovation continues.

OnLive is thrilled to announce today that due to overwhelming demand from our community of SL Go users, we are making the Firestorm Viewer available for mobile devices including Android and iOS. Due to current technical limitations, we are only able to offer one viewer for mobile devices. Our studies have shown that the SL Go community prefers the Firestorm Viewer, and now they can enjoy the same rich experience on their mobile devices.

We will still offer our users a choice of either Linden Lab’s Second Life Viewer the Firestorm Viewer on PC and Mac to supercharge older computers and laptops. We hope to bring this same choice to mobile devices soon, but still have some technical hurdles to overcome.

Users with existing SL Go accounts do not need to do anything! Just pick up your iPad or Android tablet and login with your SL Go account. Firestorm will appear.

You’ve probably heard of SL Go, the viewer that streams Second Life from the cloud in ultra-rich graphics, right to your tablet or low powered computer. You might have wanted to try it, but hate giving out your credit card info and personal information. Well, we now have a great solution for you!

For a limited time, if you sign up for SL Go with a NEW USER account you can buy weekly subscriptions in-world using Linden Dollars (L$). There is a private sign up booth where you can create your free SL Go account, and then pay for subscriptions using L$. Each week is only L$650, and you can buy up to 4 weeks at a time. Also, you can return and renew or extend your subscription in-world at any time.

Sorry, but existing users with monthly subscriptions will need to wait for this feature. It is much more complex to transition an account from US Dollars to Linden Dollars. We will be bringing this feature to you soon.

Paying for SL Go with L$ has been one of the most common requests we have received in our forums and chat rooms. We are very excited to offer this now to new users. We hope this makes it much easier for you to be a part of our growing SL Go community.